A three foot long black snake undulates towards me from the flower beds towards my house. She stops and raises her head, tasting the air, when she sees me. “You don’t want to live here”I tell her “we have dogs.” She shrugs shoulderlessly and continues towards the back stairs, disappearing into the gloom underneath.
The next day, she is watching me work on my raised garden (it is on four foot high supports) as I adjust the anti-squirrel fencing. “Could you move please?” I ask her, as she is directly in my path, and she obligingly and calmly angles to the right, under the gardens and out of my way. Do snakes understand English?
She seems like a considerate gal, and we don’t seem to have any mice problems these days. If we are lucky, she will also keep our cicada population down. She wasn’t out today but it is raining; maybe she doesn’t have an umbrella or is enjoying a good nap. She is the same color as my garden hose; it would be JML to have not noticed her. Hopefully I won’t try to pick her up next time I water the flowers!